Revocation, Cannabis Corpse, Archspire & Black Fast Perform At Mystery Box

By Lisa Burke

image

September 18th 2015, Mystery Box, Los Angeles CA: In the midst of a month-long North American headline tour with Richmond VA marijuana-themed death metal band Cannabis Corpse, Canadian technical death metal group Archspire and St. Louis MO progressive thrash quartet Black Fast as support acts, Boston MA modern metal heroes Revocation arrived in Los Angeles for a gig at the Mystery Box last Friday September 18 2015, and our writer Lisa Burke was in attendance to capture the show for us. Read her review below:

It would be quite an understatement in regard to last night’s adventures in metal at the fairly new downtown LA arts district establishment Mystery Box was ‘just another night in the Los Angeles metal community’. Rumor has it this place has only been open six months, and it’s already receiving good feedback, and notable attendees including Metal Blade reps and Chris Broderick who happened to make an appearance last night. This was my second visit to this venue in a matter of three days basically because it was the kind of week with no shortage of good metal acts to be found. The major improvement from my first experience at this venue was the better stage lighting plus more evenly balanced sound. The large outdoor patio area provides all bands ample space to sell their merch while giving people the option to indulge in chicken tacos that are constantly being cooked up on the patio.

This particular event consisting of four brutal metal bands of various genres that were extremely compatible together in this line up. The majority of the times I attend these kinds of shows, at least one of the bands is either an odd fit or not up to the level of the other bands on the bill, however that was completely not the case on this night. I caught the last few songs of the openers Black Fast and was immediately impressed. They are a progressive blackened thrash band and while they may have been a bit less in-your-face brutal than the later bands, that was not a weakness. The room was filled, the moshing commenced, and the crowd was totally into their vibe.

Next up was Archspire, a brutal technical death metal band from Canada. Having no prior knowledge of this band I was pleasantly surprised at what these guys were able to bring to the table with their four members, and as far as I could tell, missing bass player who wasn’t really missed at all due to no shortage of strings on the guitars with excellent technically sound players behind them. The range and variations in vocals really helped these guys to shine with talent as it was packed with everything from punk mixed with rap to straight-up death to exceedingly lengthy gutterals. I am definitely a new fan, and I highly recommend checking them out if you get the chance. I might be slightly overestimating here, but in my book Canada can do no wrong in the metal scene.

The draw for me on this night and definitely the most lighthearted and fogheaded band of the evening was Cannabis Corpse. If you can’t figure out that their two main influences here are Marijuana and Cannibal Corpse you probably don’t need any more weed. These dudes put on a kick ass set aside from an amp death/guitar blowout technical difficulty that through some great teamwork was appropriately rectified. With the singer’s quirky obsession on all things ‘weed’, stage banter asking the audience to smoke weed for all eternity, and an invitation of the blazing marijuana aliens was in abundance. The hair-whipping-on-guitar action, and beard-powered vocals mixed with their wonderfully fun song parodies made for a very entertaining show. A couple of noted song titles include ‘Immortal Parties’, and my favorite because of its obviousness is ‘Experiment in Horticulture’. To top off this hilarious inhalation of weed metal, there was a ‘weed bud’ costumed character that you were invited to get a photo opportunity with after the show.

Revocation
Revocation

Headlining this event was Revocation, who have been signed on Metalblade for about a year-and-a-half now, in which time they have made a commendable progression in the cohesion of their mixture of death and thrash. This band hits you immediately with their intense force and incredible riffs. While almost overbearing at times, I definitely enjoyed their most recent songs better as I feel there were some moments where they cross over abruptly from straight death to straight thrash in one song too much, and it becomes unbalanced. While I appreciate when they use some duel vocals I couldn’t get into the clean harmonies of it because the rest of the musical elements are still on the death metal channel. Sometimes the drumming isn’t in the same style as what everyone else is playing as well, and that gets slightly confusing to me. The death lyrics and vocal screams of brutality draws my attention most, and the compelling thrashy riffs when appropriately blended with technical death riffs take these guys to a high level. There is definitely a uniqueness to this band, and they put in 100 per cent in front of a packed house which definitely enhanced the mood. Basically in abstract analytical terms Revocation has all the components of a good top shelf Long Island Ice Tea, but sometimes they drink too quickly, and forget to stir it, so one of the liquors becomes too dominant. That said I had a really great evening with not much lag time between bands and a fantastically solid line up.

Remaining Tour Dates:
9/21 – Seattle, WA @ Studio Seven
9/22 – Vancouver, BC @ Red Room
9/24 – Edmonton, AB @ Starlite
9/25 – Regina, SK @ Riddell Center
9/26 – Winnipeg, MB @ Windsor Hotel
9/27 – Minneapolis, MN @ Skyway Theater Studio B
9/29 – Detroit, MI @ Shelter
9/30 – Toronto, ON @ Hard Luck***
10/1 – Ottawa, ON @ Maverick’s***
10/2 – Quebec City, QC @ La Source***
10/3 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott***

*** = No Cannabis Corpse

Comments

comments